Demitasse
by seilleanmor
Summary: A sort of AU post episode universe. Kate and Castle meeting in a coffee shop after each case, to talk things out and have a moment of closeness.
1. 8x03 PhDead

Demitasse: "Half cup" in French; a half-size or three-ounce cup used primarily for espresso coffee.

* * *

 **Demitasse**

* * *

The text comes through at 11:26 and Castle stumbles up out of his desk chair, phone clutched tight in both hands. An unknown number, but already his heart soars, battering against the cage of his ribs. Hurrying for the bedroom, Rick makes a detour to the dresser to grab a pair of socks and moves to sit heavily on the end of the bed.

A memory comes like a fist around his throat and he bows his head, breathes carefully to let it pass without incident. Earlier in the year, after everything went down with Tyson, Kate had gone through a phase of stealing his clothes. It started with sweaters, because they're huge on her and she curls up inside and peeks at him, her fingers tucked into the sleeves. And then his socks too, feet in his lap on the couch and her toes wiggling.

It got to the point where he didn't have any socks one morning, fingertips scrabbling against the empty bottom of his drawer. Rick had corralled his wife in the kitchen, arms sliding low around her waist to back her up against the counter. He meant to ask her to stop stealing his socks, or at least put them through the laundry, but she had stretched up onto tiptoe and kissed him and he had suddenly stopped caring.

He bought himself more socks, gave all of his previous ones to his wife. After she left, he couldn't bear to rummage around and see what was missing, but he hopes that Kate took at least one pair with her. Something of home, something of him.

It's late; a yawn has his jaw aching and he scrubs a hand over his chin, feels the prickle of regrowth there. His phone is on the bed beside him and he scoops it up, reads the message again.

 _Can we meet? Nina's place, ten minutes._

Castle only has eight left now and he toes his way into his sneakers, glad that he didn't change into pajamas yet. He was at his desk, finalising the plans for his Halloween party and trying to resist his temptation to just cancel the whole thing. The hope that she might come, might give herself one night to play host with him, keeps him buoyant and he signed off on the catering and the decorations.

He loses another two minutes hunting for a jacket, finds it hung up in the closet by the front door, and then he's hurrying out of the loft and down the stairs. His calves burn as he swallows the steps and he grunts through it, huffs a ragged breath from his nose when that old skiing injury hums its early warning.

Nina's place is a coffee shop. The cafe itself isn't called that - he really couldn't tell you what the name is - but he and Kate are friends with the owner, Nina. She mothers them both, always tutting about how skinny Beckett is whenever they drop by on a lazy Sunday morning. Producing donuts and bear claws and hot chocolate laden with cream, watching them from behind the counter to make sure that Kate gets her fill.

The place feels safe for them both, somewhere they used to haunt back when their relationship was still a secret. In fact, the first time they went together had been before they were dating, before that rain-soaked night. Sometime after the sniper case, if he's remembering right.

Kate texted and asked to meet him. He got the feeling that she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts, and pride had puffed up in his chest at being the person she chose, the one she trusted to spend time with. Since then it's been a fairly frequent haunt of theirs, more popular still since they got married.

It's only a block away from the loft and he makes it in record time, slams his way through the door. It sets the bell hanging over the entrance clattering wildly and he winces, does a slow turn to take in the room. It's quiet, a single frazzled college student bent double over a notepad and scribbling furiously, and Rick scrapes a hand over his face.

Right.

She probably got cold feet. Or something came up with whatever the hell it is she's doing. God, maybe she's bleeding out in a gutter somewhere right now. Why is he wasting time?

Castle spins on his heel and yanks the door open again, freezing when a voice rings out through the coffee shop.

"Ciao, Richard."

"Hey Nina," he says, closing the door for a second time and turning back around to face the owner. She's wiping her hands on the apron tied at her waist and she comes around the counter to him.

Two fingers land at his forearm and she dips her head, forcing him to bend in close just to hear her. "She's in back. Not looking so hot. Told me to send you through."

"Right," he swallows, his thumb rubbing over his wedding band to warm the metal. It's a habit he's picked up since she left, and he keeps coming up against the pitying looks of his mother and Alexis whenever they catch him at it. "Thank you, Nina. Can I get our usual?"

"Miss Kate already has your drinks," Nina says, pushing on his arm to get him to move.

He goes, stumbling his way around the counter and through the swinging door. The room back here is mostly storage, but there's a couch too, and his wife is curled up small on it. Her shoes are on the floor beside her and both arms wrap around her knees, her chin pillowed on them.

"You came," she breathes when he comes inside. For a moment he's arrested in the entryway, can't quite believe that she's willing to talk to him, and then the door swings closed and smacks him in the ass, makes him grunt. Kate lets her legs drop, looks as if she's about to get up, but he hurries to sit on the couch with her instead.

An arm slides around her shoulders and he hauls her in close, his lips at the crown of her head. "Of course I came. I told you. Together. That's what I want."

"It's what I want too," she says, her fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. Kate scrubs her face against his chest and breathes deeply, the tension draining out of her like water circling a drain. "I want to be with you. I want to come home."

"So come home," he says easily, and his wife lifts up out of his arms.

There are two mugs on the side table, steam curling up from them both, and she hands one over to him. Castle takes it gratefully and lifts it to his mouth, letting the coffee fog cling to the cliff edge of his jaw. Kate leaves her mug on the table, picking at the knee of her jeans instead, and sorrow crumples her face.

"I can't. Castle, you know that I. . .I'm not built to let it go. I have to get justice."

"I'm not asking you to let it go," he says, plucking her hand away from the denim of her pants so that he can knot their fingers together. "Kate, I know you. I know you're a crusader. It's one of the reasons that I love you. I'd never ask you to give that up."

Pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers, Kate growls low in her throat and closes her eyes. Her spine is stiff now, a straight and unyielding line, and he really hopes that their almost-hug is not the only thing he's going to get from her tonight.

"I wish that I could. I want to get this over with as soon as I can. I want to come home. I miss you."

"I miss you too," he settles his palm against her cheek and smoothes his thumb over the soft skin beneath her eye. "So let's do this together. You and me. You don't have to choose, Kate. You can have justice and also have me."

His wife grits her teeth and that jagged vein in her forehead pulses its purple despair. "No, I can't. I won't put you in danger."

"Don't you think I'm already in danger?" he says gently, and her head snaps up. "I'm not trying to scare you, honey, but I'm your husband. That makes me an automatic target. If someone's after you, there's nothing to stop them from coming after me."

"That's why I had to leave," Kate pulls her fingers out of his grip, but she's clasping his hand in both of hers before grief gets a chance to chew at him. "Babe, I don't want to be doing this. Please believe me when I say that this is all temporary, and I'm doing it to keep what we have safe. Leaving you is. . .nothing has hurt like this, Rick. Nothing."

Bending down, Castle puts his mug on the floor to free up his hands. One slides into Kate's hair and rests against the curve of her skull, holding her in place as he leans in and kisses her forehead. Her breath washes over his chin in hot, desperate little puffs and he stays right where he is, nose buried in her hair.

"I love you, Kate. You're my partner. I just want to help."

"I know," she hums, tipping her chin up to catch his mouth. It's the first time in a week that he's kissed her and he groans, tongue slicking past the seam of her lips. Kate fists a hand in the collar of his shirt and moans around the intrusion of his tongue, pulling back enough to bite at his bottom lip. He jerks, and it seems to shock her into sobriety because she tugs away from the kiss entirely. "The best thing that you can do to help me is give me space to work through this. I need to put it behind me."

"Okay," he promises, chasing after her until their foreheads meet. His nose nudges hers and he smiles, the hand still in her hair sliding down to her nape now, fingertips digging into the knot of tension she carries around. "You can have time. You can have space. But I need this. I need to see you, Kate. I'm going insane not knowing where you are, what you're doing."

A hand comes up and Kate's fingers curl around the shell of his ear, clinging. "You've got me. I haven't left you, Castle. You know that if you need me, I'm here."

"But you _have_ left me," he cries out, rearing away from her touch. He feels like a little boy, watching his mother leave for the theatre and hiding in his bedroom from the nanny and her horrid, too-long nails. "I need you every minute of the day."

"I want a baby," Kate blurts out and he chokes out a strangled noise, sagging back against the arm of the couch. His mouth opens, but his voice is curiously absent and he can only stare at her. "I want a baby, and a dog. I want family vacations, and Sundays in the park. I want the life that we were working to build, but I can't go on like normal knowing that there's a chance it might be snatched away."

He manages a nod, clearing his throat, and he reaches for her hand again. Her fingers are thinner than he remembers, her knuckles almost bulbous. "I want that too. You know that I do. I just don't see how it's possible if you're gone. And everyone- I can't take the pity, Kate. I tell people that you're coming back, that this isn't forever, but they look at me like I'm deluded. Even Lucy suggested a divorce."

"No," she wails, clutching tighter at him, and she swipes her fingertips against her cheek. They come away dry, but her mouth hangs open like a rotten thing, strings of flesh keeping her jaw attached. "I don't want a divorce, Castle, please. I want forever with you."

"Hey, shh, no," he brings her in against his chest again, both arms tight around her shoulders, and he touches his lips the part of her he can reach. Her eyebrow, mostly, his kiss a wet smear that makes her huff a breath. "I don't want a divorce, honey. Not ever. I trust you, and I love you, and I know you're coming back."

"Yeah, I- hold on," Kate struggles out of his embrace and sits up, folding her arms across her chest and staring him down. "Who is Lucy?"

He laughs, God help him. His wife is frowning something fierce now, her body ticking with quiet rage, and he covers his mouth with a palm and scrunches his eyes closed. When he gets it together, Kate is still grim and silent, and he tucks the spill of her hair back behind one ear.

"Lucy is my new home operating system. You have nothing to be jealous of, Beckett. Trust me. You're the only thing I can think about."

"Not jealous," she grumbles, turning her face away from him.

It lets him have the element of surprise and he swoops in, opening his mouth against her jaw. The place high up by her ear, where her pulse thumps hot and strong and her skin is as soft as the inside of two am. Kate sighs and tilts her head, her hand falling to his knee and squeezing.

"I missed you," he says into her skin. Castle fists his hand and digs his knuckles in just underneath his wife's navel, makes her gasp and fold around his arm. "I need you, Kate."

"I can't," she says, something close to a sob escaping her, and she squirms underneath his touch. He lets her go when she struggles, folds his hands carefully and traps them between his knees so that he doesn't reach for her again. "We can't do this. It's not fair to you. Not when I can't give you everything that you want."

Castle tilts his head to look at her, watches the way she hooks her fingers in each piece of herself and draws it in close to her chest. Enough of this.

Yes. It hurts. He's hurting, and he finds himself constantly toppling into the great chasm of her absence, but it doesn't have to be like this. They still love each other, and it doesn't have to be catastrophic. "Did you like my glasses? And the bow tie."

"You know I did," she huffs, peering at him from between the splay of her fingertips. "God, Castle, it's not- I didn't leave because I'm not attracted to you. You know that, right?"

"I know," he says firmly. "You left to protect our life together, and to keep me safe. I don't like it, Kate, and I wish you'd be honest with me, but I do understand. And I still have hope."

Kate drops her hands from her face and reaches for him, one knee coming up to the couch cushion. Her body is vertiginous with something like relief and she topples towards him, her skull crashing against his clavicle.

"More than hope," she murmurs, fingers tugging on his shirt to untuck it from his pants and slipping inside, searching for warm skin. She's drawn again and again to that soft place underneath his ribcage and her fingertips flirt there now, her touch like little kisses. "You can be certain, Castle. I love you, and I'm coming home. As soon as I can."

She stands then, sifting her fingers through the spill of his hair. He catches hold of her wrist and tugs, the thought of her leaving him here making sick panic coagulate at the base of his throat. "Kate. Can we- same time next week?"

"Get a burner," she nods once, picking his mug up from the floor and collecting her own as well. "Text me. And wait five minutes before you leave here, okay?"

"Okay," he promises, standing up from the couch and sliding his arms around her. His palms span wide at her hipbones and he drags her in close, dips his head to kiss her again. "Kate? I love you. No matter what anybody else thinks. And I can't wait for the day you come home."

Her forehead rests against the edge of his jaw and she hooks two fingers in the pocket of his pants, her breathing shaky and brittle. "I'm working on it, Castle. I'll be home soon."

"In the meantime," he says, forcing himself to be the one to break away. "See you here next week."

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, so I think this might become a thing? I don't know yet, we'll see what happens next week, but I'm kind of attached to the idea of them needing some kind of secret tryst, so this was born. Let me know if you'd like it to continue or you'd rather I focused on individual episodes.

 **Tumblr:** katiehoughton

 **Twitter:** seilleanmor


	2. 8x04 What Lies Beneath

**Demitasse**

* * *

For almost twenty minutes, Kate convinces herself that he isn't going to show up. _Have a good night_ he said to her when he left the precinct. No mention of their not entirely solid arrangement. He asked to meet same time next week - this week, now, today - but so much has happened in that handful of days, and she wouldn't blame him if he stayed at home.

With the daughter who is curiously silent, the mother who came right into battle and stood toe to toe with Beckett. Castle's family, and yes, hers too, but she's under no illusions here. Kate knows where their loyalties lie, and it's not with her. The ragged woman who dragged Castle along in the dust for so long, who forced him to wear his hands down to bloodied nubs as he scratched and clawed at her.

In the back room of Nina's place, Kate bends double on the couch and traps her skull between her knees, her teeth bared and primal against the black cotton of her yoga pants. She wanted to wait out front for him, sit prim and proper at a barstool.

Swivel back and forth and shred a napkin as she anticipates his arrival, touch her tongue to the crisp edge of red lipstick, smooth her hands down her skirt over and over. Instead she's bare faced and hiding from those huge windows, her sneakers dumped in a pile just next to the couch and her hands snug in their sweater paws.

The door swings open and Kate shifts to her knees, rising up with her palms clasped together and her hands pressed to her heart as her husband comes inside the room. Castle has two travel cups, one in each hand, and he sets them both down on the table next to the couch and comes to sit beside her.

"Hi," he says, his hair fluffy and flopping over into his eyes. She pushes it back without thinking, scratches her nails over his scalp, and Castle captures her wrist in his fingers and holds her there. His mouth opens against her palm in something not quite a kiss, the very tip of his tongue darting out to touch her skin.

He keeps her hand there, against his cheek with his own covering her cold fingers, and he settles against the back of the couch. "You're still gorgeous like this. But Kate, that dress. You're- God."

"I thought you might like it," she laughs, tilting her head and sending the whole cascade of her hair over one shoulder.

Vikram is working on identifying those drugs, squirrelled away and muttering to himself, and he didn't even notice when Beckett crept away. She left her guilt at the door, shed it like an old and ill-fitting skin, and she feels pink and healthy now.

"I really did," her husband grits out, letting go of her fingers to scrape his hand over his face. He leaves it covering his mouth, peering at her from over the craggy rise and fall of his fingertips, but his eyes seem to have caught hold of this morning's autumn sky and clung tight. Sharp and clear, the whole blue truth of them pins her and Kate swallows, tucks her feet further under herself.

"How has your week been?" she offers, reaching for the cup from the side table and lifting it to her mouth. Years ago, before they were together even, he had marked her cup with a tiny drawing of an elephant just underneath the rim and mostly hidden by the silicone lid.

He's stayed as rich and inky as ever, through so many washes, and Kate seeks out the little guy and touches the pad of her thumb to his trunk in greeting before she takes a sip. The moment the liquid hits her tongue she wrinkles her nose, eyes flying to Castle's face, and he laughs.

"Thought coffee this late might not actually be the smartest idea. So. Tea."

"You've seen me drink coffee at two in the morning," she laughs, setting the travel cup against her knee. Kate hooks her nail into the opening in the lid and wiggles her thumb to make the silicone distort and bow. "But you're probably right. I haven't been sleeping so well anyway."

It's too much, and Kate braces for the wash of grief across his face, but instead he chuckles. It makes her smile too and she brings her knee up towards her chest and props her cheek on it to watch him. Castle arches a brow at her and shrugs out of his coat, draping it over the opposite end of the couch.

"You've been spoiled by our bed. And your ruggedly handsome bed partner. But you know it's. . .you can come back any time you want. Spend the night on your side."

"I want," she says quietly.

When Kate was very young, maybe seven or eight, she took a dance class with some of her friends from school. At the end of each semester they would put on a recital, their round little faces caked in a thick layer of stage makeup. Each night, Katie and her girlfriends would wipe it off in the dressing room, competing to see who could get the most grotesque smear, the waxy red corners of her lipstick mouth almost to her chin.

Her smile feels that way now, hideous and mostly wiped clean, and Kate lifts her head. "Castle. I want to be home. I hate this. I just can't yet."

"It's alright," he soothes, reaching for her and touching his thumb to the freckle underneath her eye. It makes her blink and he huffs a little breath of amusement, splaying his fingers. His palms rests at her cheek, the tips of his fingers sliding into her hair and working at her nape, his thumb at her ear.

She gives herself a moment to be selfish, her head suddenly so heavy in the cup of his palm, and Kate nudges her nose against his wrist. The curious thump of his pulse there makes her smile and she closes her eyes, breathing carefully so as not to awaken the beast of grief in the pit of her stomach.

"Castle," she says, worming her toes underneath his thigh. She's wearing socks, but they're the thin ones that circle underneath the bone of her ankle, and her feet are caught up in a rictus of cold. "I know what you're doing. I'm not an idiot."

"Me?" he feigns surprise, shifting to let her work her whole foot underneath his leg. "I don't know what you're talking about."

His femur is heavy on her skeleton feet, but heat rushes in like liquid need and she wiggles her toes to get him to look at her. "You're trying to win me back. The coffee, the cases. You're trying to make me fall for you again, the same way you did the first time."

"Okay. Maybe just a little bit," he whispers, the whole left side of his face scrunching up in a wince. He peers at her from one slitted eye, but Kate only shakes her head

Thumb at the corner of his mouth, she smoothes her fingers over the edge of his jaw. "You don't have to win me back. You don't have to make me fall for you again. You've already got me, Rick. I already. . .I didn't stop loving you. Wanting you."

"If I don't try-" he starts, cutting himself off on a grunt and turning his face away from her. His jaw ticks with the grit of his teeth and Kate drops her hand, lets him have that space to collect his thoughts. "Kate. I can't just sit back and let you be gone. I have to try. I have to keep reminding you what you've left."

"Like I don't know?" she cries out, jerking her feet out from underneath her husband's leg so that she can tuck them beneath herself and rise up on her knees, looming over him. "Castle, your mother came to see me at the precinct. To remind me that you're the one person I've always been able to trust, that you're someone I can rely on. Don't you think it's killing me not to have my partner with me on this one?"

He stares at her, the angle of his jaw as sharp and as carefully crafted as a Roman frieze. Kate watches the gulp of his throat as he swallows and sinks back down to sit on her calves again, hating herself for rearing up like a beast with serpentine hair tossing wild around her head.

"Kate, when I heard that P.J. Moffat was dead, the very first thing I wanted to do was call you. You're my best friend. And I just wanted to hear your voice, to have your hand to hold. But you took that from me."

"You're angry," she says, batting at the beehive of her husband's silence with her paw. Of course she doesn't know, wasn't there to witness it, but she gets the impression that Castle jumped straight in to trying to win her back.

Never considered that he might not actually want her. And Kate cannot bear it if he turns around in five years, twenty, and realises that he fought for her out of obligation and not yearning.

"I'm not angry," he says, and Kate growls low in her throat. "I'm hurt. I'm wounded. I miss you more than I knew was possible. But how can I be mad at you, Beckett? I don't know what you're doing, but I do know _you_. So I figure it has to be some kind of justice, right? Something big. Who am I to declare myself more important than your crusade?"

"Oh," she breathes, her head nodding slowly as if that top connection to her spine has been roughly severed. "You feel like you're less important than the- than what I'm doing. Who I'm helping."

That makes him snort and he turns his face away from her, scrapes a clumsy hand over his jaw. "Well. Aren't I? You chose this over me, Beckett, and you're supposed to be the one person in the world who always chooses me first."

"I'm trying to keep you safe," she whispers, guilt's black maw opening up again in her belly and beginning to chew.

"That's bullshit. If you really wanted me to be safe, you'd let this go, whatever it is. You'd come home, you'd be my wife and the captain of the precinct, and you wouldn't touch it."

Kate draws both knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, her fingers knotted together against her shins. "I thought you understood. You said that you- you love me because I'm a crusader. Even back in our first year, you said I'm extraordinary because I don't give up or back down."

"Just because I understand doesn't mean I have to like it," he says, and the rumbling thunderclap of his voice has her recoiling against the arm of the couch. "Damn it, Beckett, I didn't want to do this. I wanted to be happy with you for just half an hour. Maybe make out a little bit."

"You have to let this stuff out, Castle. Otherwise it'll just fester inside you."

"You're kidding me, right?" he says flatly, his shoulders dropped too low as if he's forcing himself not to bring them up to his ears. "You, Kate Beckett, are lecturing me on the importance of talking it out?"

"What do you think Doctor Burke is for," she fires right back, irritation prickling along the back of her neck now.

She loves him, her goofy man. Knowing how much she's hurting him makes her move slowly through her days, Marley's chains clanking as she goes. One foot in her grave.

Even so, if arguing with him is the only way to make him be honest, she'll needle at his raw places with the barbed jab of her tongue. "I deserve to be yelled at, Castle. I walked away from our marriage, from you. And you're the kindest man- the tallest man on earth. But even you can't take this without fighting back."

"I'm scared to be angry," he whispers, still refusing to look at her. "I'm scared that if I'm anything less than the man you love, if I stop showing up with your coffee and a theory on the case, you won't come back to me when this is over."

"The only thing that would stop me coming back is if you told me you didn't want me to," she says, scrabbling for his hand and lifting it to her mouth. Her lips skim his knuckles and one corner of his mouth twitches.

Castle finally turns to look at her again and his lips thin out in a sheepish grimace. "I threw a party. Without you. It was weird, and I hated it. We're supposed to host together."

"I know," she says wryly, smothering her amusement against the palm of her hand. "Babe, you had half my precinct there. People talk. _Oh, Captain Beckett, I love what you did with the place_."

"Who said that to you," he splutters, glancing around as if he imagines the culprit might materialise and offer him their wrists. "Was it Karpowski? It was, wasn't it."

Shaking her head at him, Kate presses the soles of her feet together and draws them in close to her body, her knees flat to the couch. It's a meditation pose, and she feels the current of anguish flow out through her upturned palms.

"No one said those exact words. But the idea was there. I'm glad that you can still have fun, Castle. I didn't want to take that from you too."

"Most fun I had this week was you teasing me on the phone about the blind priest," he admits, one giant hand coming to wrap around both of her feet and squeeze.

Beckett had dialled before she even knew what she was doing, and then it was connecting and his voice was rumbling over the line, a little gruff with embarrassment. A lot pleased to hear hers. She fell into it with him, the way they used to talk when they first started dating, back when she tried to convince herself that it was definitely moving too fast to spend every night with him.

He's funny on the phone, his voice acrobatic to compensate for the fact that she can't see his wiggling eyebrows and goofy faces, the way his whole body comes alive with performance when he has a story to tell.

"How long can you stay?" he says quietly, his thumb working into the space between her feet and digging hard into the spot on her left sole that makes her groan, sends a jolt of pleasure up into her jaw.

Her eyes flick to the watch at her wrist, but she already knows. She shouldn't be here at all. "Not much longer. I have to. . .the longer I'm here, the less sleep I'm going to be able to get later."

"Ryan texted me," he says quietly, his free hand coming to the back of her neck and squeezing there. It makes her jerk and she breathes through her nose, feels like a marionette with a single string tugging hard at her nape. "Said you were napping on the couch in your office. Are you taking care of yourself, Kate?"

"Not really," she admits. "The faster I get this done, the sooner I can come home. So sleeping, eating, it feels like wasting time."

"Can't come back to me if you're dead," he says bluntly, and his fingers flex at the back of her neck. "Beckett, I will bring you three meals to the precinct every single day and then drag you home to bed at the end of it if you refuse to take care of yourself. Try me."

"I'm doing my best."

He regards her for a long moment and then he nods once, his hand coming around to settle against her cheek instead. Castle uses that grip to keep her there and he leans in, kisses her. His tongue is insistent at the seam of her lips and she unfolds for him, lifting her chin.

It's been a week since she's kissed him and Kate fists a hand in the collar of his shirt and clings, her hips rocking and his teeth sharp at her bottom lip. When he breaks away his forehead rests against hers and he smiles, tucks her hair back out of her face.

"It's your turn to leave first, Beckett. Can't make me do it every week."

She nods, resolute, and she reaches for her sneakers and pulls them on. Her fingers are clumsy at the laces and she huffs a sigh and leaves them half untied, tucking the straggling ends into the shoe. Turning over her shoulder to look at her husband, Kate darts in for a last, fast kiss and then stands up from the couch entirely.

"Same time next week?"

"Sure," he says, hands trapped between his knees as if he's afraid that he might reach for her. "Hey Kate? I love you. Still. Always."

"I love you too," she gives him, and then she has to leave.


	3. 8x05 The Nose

**Demitasse**

* * *

"Just- stay here. A minute more," she grits out, and Castle tightens his arms around his wife. She already has the entire length of her body flush with his, her thighs quivering where they brush the denim of his pants, but he draws her in closer still.

He got here first for once, ordered their coffees from Nina. Just being here makes him feel exposed, and he wriggled under the heat of the sniper's scope at his back as he waited for their drinks to be ready. Nina knew, kept shooting glances at him when he drummed his fingertips against the countertop, and he's so very grateful to her for hurrying.

The moment she was pushing the travel cups back into his hands, he rushed for the back room and settled himself on the couch, tried to calm the pulse of panic in the base of his throat. It felt like only seconds before Nina was poking her head around the door and then tutting at him, coming all the way inside.

Age layers over her in fissures now, her hands birdlike and hooked as they flitted over him. Castle had let it happen, no energy to push her away, and Nina had muttered to herself in Italian as she checked for the place where his seams have burst, his stuffing leaking out.

Nina left for just a moment, went to grab him some new pastry creation to try, and she hovered as he ate. It was like ash in his mouth, but he chewed it and he swallowed it down and he even managed a smile for Nina and her worrying.

She left him alone after that, let him wallow on the couch and wonder if Kate was going to show up at all. It was only a few hours ago that she was in their home, and Castle really thought she might not come here, might not want to face him.

Mia's words had rattled around his skull, about Kate loving him and feeling passionately and what they have being genuine, and then like an apparition there she was.

The door had eased open and she had peeked inside, paranoia making her dark eyes dart around the room before they landed on him. He had heaved himself up from the couch to meet her and she had barrelled into him without a word, her hands fisted in the material of his shirt at his back.

Her nose is buried in the crease of his neck now and he rocks them both, murmuring against the crown of her head. Castle strokes a palm up and down the length of her spine. "Come on, honey. It's okay. A good day, right? A good solve."

"You smell good," she huffs a bitter laugh, finally lifting her head from his chest to see him. She's not smiling, but he touches his thumb to the corner of her lips and she cracks on a grin, ducking her head. "I'm sorry I missed you, Castle. That wasn't on purpose."

"It was on my part," he confesses, sliding his hands inside her denim jacket to ease it off her shoulders. He folds it over the arm of the couch and reaches for his wife's hand, brings her to sit with him. "I overstayed my welcome at Mia's place. Thought it might be easier for us both if I wasn't home to, uh. . .to watch."

Kate folds herself up small on the couch and works her feet out of her sneakers, wiggling her toes inside of her socks. "Nothing about it was easy. I don't- I wish I could just come home, Castle."

"I don't understand, Kate," he pleads, shaking his head. He clutches at her, scrabbling for her fingers to squeeze, and he tries to keep his breathing steady through the sluggish work of panic through his system. "You asked me to give you space. And I'm trying, I really am, but I can't do it if you keep talking about how much you want to come home. Not if you won't give me a good reason why you can't yet."

"You know that I can't tell you," she says, lifting his hand to her mouth so that she can kiss his knuckles. He scraped them earlier this evening when he was wrangling with the gun-toting maniac in his home, but Kate's lips dust carefully over his skin and he flexes his hand. It makes his fingertips brush the underside of her chin and she grunts, squirming away from his touch. "Castle, it's to keep you safe. All of it. The space, and the secrets."

Taking his hand back from her, Rick starfishes his fingers and inspects his knuckles, the purpling bloom of hematoma there.

"Kate, honey. I don't mean to undermine you here, but I'm not exactly safer without you. That guy who came to the loft tonight? He said 'you're married to the captain of the twelfth.' My being your husband puts me in danger, whether you're there or not."

"I'm scared, Castle," she whispers, drawing her knees up to her chest and allowing the corner of the couch to gobble her up whole. "Everybody that I love gets hurt. My mom, Montgomery, Royce. It's dangerous to be around me."

That makes a growl rumble up out of him and he topples towards her, comes in to smudge a fearsome kiss to her mouth. " _No_ , Kate. None of that is your fault. You're not- being around you can only be a good thing."

He is so tired of this, of being apart from his wife. Castle wraps a rough arm around her shoulders and hauls her in close, arranges her to lay down on the couch with him. He's got her pinned between his body and the back of the sofa and he kisses her, both hands at her cheeks to keep her close.

The length of Kate's body stretches out next to his and she pushes a knee between his thighs, her tongue slick and hot past the seam of his lips. All too soon she's gentling him, her fingers sifting through his hair over and over, and she breaks away from his mouth.

"We shouldn't."

"We're married," he fires right back, one hand sliding down the ridge of her spine until he meets the flesh of her ass. His fingers splay wide and he jerks her hips in close, swallows up her gasp. "I know you wanted space, to keep me safe or whatever it is you think you're doing, but I still want you so much. I still need you."

Kate's whole body shudders with grief and she presses her face into his shoulder, her mouth open. He feels the scrape of teeth through the fabric of his shirt and he cups the back of her head, his thumb stroking the warm curve of her ear.

"I don't want to," she murmurs to him, lifting her head to let him see the wash of anguish over her face, the crumbling edge of her jaw. "Not here. Not like this. I don't feel like I deserve it."

"Is that why you're doing this?" he says slowly, letting his hand slide down to the back of her neck. Castle's thumb settles over the thready hum of her pulse and he kisses her forehead, his other hand pushing on her shoulder until she lies flat again.

Kate pillows her head against him and he arranges the ends of her hair, the thick spill of it half across his chest. The tip of his wife's nose is a point of cold contact through his button down and he shifts under her, his lips skimming the crown of her head.

"Beckett, please tell me you're not doing this to punish yourself."

"I'm- I don't think so?" she says, bringing her knee up so that she can hook her leg over his. "Not consciously."

He knows he's clutching at her, that his fingertips are probably leaving five purple smudges in the creamy skin of her shoulder, but he can't help himself. These moments with her, carved into shifting sand, make him feel cataclysmic.

"Good," he says fiercely, two fingers at her chin to lift her face to him. From this angle it's awkward, and he feels something pop in his neck, but he manages to kiss her in spite of the lance of pain that zigzags up to his ear.

"Ryan was flirting with me," Kate huffs, her hand somehow inside his shirt and stroking over the soft underbelly of him as if to preemptively calm him. "Not on purpose. He just didn't have a very good day. But it made me miss you."

He laughs at that, smoothing her hair down where the wash of his breath over her crown ruffles it. At least she's laughing too, and rolling to prop her chin on his chest so that she can see him. Rick touches the pad of his thumb to her bottom lip and Kate kisses his skin, a little flick of her tongue that makes his hips rock up into her.

"I miss flirting with you too, Beckett. And I don't care what The Nose says, you smell wonderful."

"She's in love with you, you know," Kate says, arching an eyebrow at him. Her lips are pressed together, unsmiling, but the richness of mirth floods her eyes. "Do you think maybe you could at least try not to make absolutely everyone fall for you?"

He snorts on a laugh and skims his thumb underneath her eye, so pleased with her. He knows it isn't any easier for her to be gone than it is for him to be without her, but they can still laugh together in these quiet moments.

It gives him the faith that things are going to be alright, that they'll come out of this hand in hand and still smiling. Stronger for it. "I can't help it. It's just my charm and my rugged handsomeness. You of all people ought to know how irresistible I am."

"You are," she agrees, squirming her way down his body until she's hovering over him. Kate dips in to brush a kiss to his lips, the fingers of her free hand curling around his ear, and when she breaks away from his mouth her nose nudges his. "Fell in love with you without meaning to, Castle. Even actively tried not to, early on."

"Exactly," he says, a heavy hand coming to rest between her shoulder blades. She shifts, and the sharp wings cut against his palm. "So you can't blame Mia for being smitten. Just know that it's entirely one sided. Only you, Kate."

She nods, laying down with him again and tucking her head underneath his chin, her arm banding around his middle. "I know. And only you for me."

"You stole my shirt," he says quietly, fingers working through her hair again. Normally she'd tug him away and complain about him making it greasy, capture his hand against her chest, but nothing about this is normal. His wife crept into their home like a burglar earlier tonight, stole away with the rest of her stuff and that one button down.

"Yeah," she says, but there's no apology in it. He feels a shadow of a kiss over his heart, and he yearns to strip his shirt off over his head and feel her skin against his. "It smelled like you, and I just," she pauses, shifts to press herself closer against his side. "I couldn't put it down. Let it go."

"Thank you for yours," he says back, remembering all over again how small that scrap of fabric was, how insubstantial it seemed in his grip. As if the force of loss might tear right through it like tissue paper. He folded it carefully and put it on her pillow, like a top up for the scent of her that no longer lingers in their bed.

When he first saw it, the grey and the navy bruise of the NYPD logo across the front, for half a second he thought it was the onesie he bought at Thanksgiving two years ago. Most of the stuff he bought for Benny he had given to charity, no use for it, but that tiny newborn onesie had twisted something in his guts and he just couldn't add it to the box with the rest.

Rick hid it in an upstairs linen closet, folded neatly between a giant stack of guest towels that nobody else tends to rifle through. Couldn't help imagining the look on Kate's face when he shows her, belly swollen with their child.

"I thought you might want to have something. Just until I'm back. But please don't wear it."

The shock of it makes him gasp and he stares down at her, his whole face slack. For a moment she only stares back and then Kate laughs and rests a palm against the side of his face, keeping him in place to receive her kiss.

"Are you gonna wear mine?" he chokes out, fingers flexing uselessly against the curve of her hip.

Kate lifts one shoulder in a shrug and tilts her head, drumming a happy little pattern against his sternum with her fingertips. Left hand, and when he coves her hand in his her ring is a cold bite against the flesh of his palm.

"You know I like to sleep in your shirts, babe."

"Called me babe," he blurts out, feels the surprise of it like a new thing growing inside his chest. "In front of everyone at the precinct. Even Mia."

Kate's teeth come to her bottom lip like bleach and she ducks her head, hides her face against his shirt. "It's habit. I'm still smitten with you. Not looking to turn that off. Unless it's- I can try, if you want me to."

" _No_ ," he says, both arms coming up to wrap tight around her. "I don't want you to stop the endearments, honey."

She pokes a fingernail into the spot between two of his ribs for that and he yelps, rolling them both until they're pressed chest to chest. Kate yawns, silent and gaping, and a frown creases at her forehead. "I should get going. It's late."

"Alright," he says easily, dipping his chin to find her mouth. He kisses her, keeps it soft and closed-mouth, and his knuckles brush the spot at her side where a bullet sliced her open less than a month ago. "How's that healing? You being careful?"

"It's fine," she promises, struggling upright on the couch. He sits up too, doesn't want to be left prone at her feet, and he doesn't bother to disguise his concern when Kate lifts her shirt and lets him see the jagged edge of the wound. "I'm being as careful as I can."

Standing up from the couch, Rick leans back in to kiss his wife. Her mouth first, and then the tip of her nose, before he lands at her forehead. "My turn to leave first. I'll see you soon, Kate. And you know, if you need me for anything, you don't have to be afraid to ask. I just want to help."

"I know you do," she says softly, straightening the lopsided dishevelment of his collar. "I'll try to remember that. I love you, Rick."

"I love you too," he says, pushes back the flare of indignation that roars to life in his belly when he thinks about leaving her. Even just for the night.

How she found the strength to walk out of their home, he will never understand.

Rick leaves her on the couch, struggling her way into her shoes, and he ducks around his counter to thank Nina on his way out of the coffee shop. Nina grabs his sleeve before he can move away, and she pins him with one of her infamous looks.

"Richard. You are taking good care of Miss Kate?"

"As much as she'll let me," he assures Nina. It earns him a nod, and she sends him on his way. He feels the watchful eye of the moon follow him home, but where he would once have snagged Kate's attention and made her stare back at the peeling lid with him, he instead turns his face away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Demitasse**

* * *

"Is he here?" Kate asks the moment she spills through the door, and at the counter Nina lifts her head. She gets a nod, and then Beckett is already barreling her way through to the back room and clattering through the door.

Her husband is on the couch, fingers laced together and trapped between his knees, and she stumbles onto the cushion and winds her arms tight around him. Around his head really, cradling him to her chest, and her lips land in his hair. "The boys told me you were working with Slaughter. What the _hell_ , Castle?"

"I'm sorry," he says and he worms his way out of her grip. He tugs back to look at her and he settles a hand at her cheek, the pad of his thumb tapping the very tip of her nose. It makes her blink, makes her startle, and his lips tug in a little grin. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"How many times did you almost die the last time you worked with him?"

"Six?"

He's sheepish, head turned half away from her now, and Kate tucks her knees underneath herself and rises up, looming over him. "Six. And that was with me watching over you the whole time, having your back from afar. What would possess you- I was out of state, Rick. What if things had gone bad?"

"I don't think you really get to lecture me right now, Beckett," he says. His eyes are flint and tinder, and Kate withdraws and tucks herself in against the arm of the couch. He's angry, the tick of his jaw and the thinning of his lips making her swallow. "Even if you had been in the city, it's not like we're partners anymore. Not like you would have done anything."

"Castle, _no_ ," she says. Her voice is a pitiful, wailing thing and she surges into him again, climbs clumsily into his lap. Hands at his cheeks, she pins his head in place and ducks to catch his eyes. "Always partners. You're- of course I would have been there. Of course I'd have your back."

He turns his head sharply, breaking out of her grip, and underneath her his body is cold and carefully crafted as marble. Kate sits back on his knees, wanting to drape herself all over his chest instead. "It doesn't feel like it, Beckett."

Her mouth opens, but there's no reassurance she can give without spilling all of her secrets like bile, making her gag on the way up. She'll take him hating her if it means he's still alive and still wading through his days in blissful ignorance.

"Slaughter tried to set me up with someone. A rebound. And the thought of. . .you've ruined me." He scrapes a rough hand over his face, but when he lets it drop his fingers curl into the meat of her thigh. "I want my wife back. Things were so good, Kate. What happened?"

"I can't," she pleads, coming in close again and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. When the boys called to tell her that they'd closed their case with Slaughter's help, that Castle had been running around with the guy again, she had sunk heavily onto the end of the bed in her hotel room and breathed carefully through the hot work of panic through her system. "I love you."

"Stop," he roars. He dislodges her from his lap and standing up to pace in front of the couch instead. "Stop saying that. It doesn't mean anything. Not unless you start acting like it."

Kate brings her feet up onto the couch and wraps her arms around her bent knees, hands hidden in their sweater paws. Her husband has his back to her, his shoulders unnaturally low as if he's fighting the urge to bring them up around his ears.

"Castle," she says quietly, and his fingers twitch. "I know I'm being unfair. I know that."

"So stop." He whips around to face her again, and the spill of desolation down his face makes her heart thrash in her chest.

Shaking her head, she holds out a hand to him and he comes back to the couch, sinks down to sit. A careful measure of space between them, but she reaches across that chasm and enfolds one of his hands in both of hers. "I can't yet."

"Slaughter told me I have to put your needs first," he says. He's still carefully not looking at her. "He said that if I really love you - and God, Kate, so much - I have to not let you go through this alone."

"I'm not alone," she says immediately. Her thumb is working against the metal of her wedding band again, her engagement ring around her neck. It's a cold press against her scar whenever she shifts, but she needs it. "Castle, you're on my mind all the time. Everything I do, every minute of the day. You're the small, clear voice in my heart."

"Recycling my daughter's speech," he huffs, but there's a tiny seed of a smile flickering at one corner of his mouth.

Kate strokes her thumb back and forth at the seam of his wrist, the skin there so soft and warm, and he tugs on her hand until she comes in close. She lets him tuck her underneath his arm, his other hand tracing aimless patterns against the thigh of her jeans, and Kate rests her head against his chest.

"I thought I have been putting you first," he says quietly. His fingers press on her shoulder before she even starts to lift her head. "I thought I've been doing that the whole time I've known you. You didn't want to be together, so we weren't together. You didn't want to talk about things, so I shut my mouth. My whole life revolves around you, Beckett."

"I know it does," she says. Kate wraps an arm tight around his waist and she fists a hand in the material of his plaid shirt, just over his hip. "I don't deserve it."

That makes him stiffen, his chin pressing hard against the crown of her head, and the tips of his fingers flirt with her collar bone where it peeks out from underneath her sweater. "Yes you do. Don't say that, Beckett. You give so much to other people, put so much into your job. You deserve to have someone who is unfailingly here for you."

"And you deserve a wife who-" she cuts herself off, because _God_. She was about to spill her guts, about to apologise for not being able to let this case go, but he doesn't even know that there is a case at all. And if he catches that scent, he'll come tumbling down the rabbit hole after her. "You deserve more than me."

"Hey," he grunts. "Don't talk smack about my wife. She's my best friend too, you know. And one of the reasons I love her is her tenacity, her drive."

She gives him the smile he's searching for, and when he dips down to steal a kiss from her mouth she lifts up against him and kisses him right back. His tongue slicks inside her mouth, fingers sifting through the mess of her hair and Kate slings a knee over his lap and sinks down.

His hips jerk and she gasps, breaks away from his mouth to pant and fist both hands in his hair as his lips work their way down her neck. His tongue darts out to flick against her pulse and Kate's hips rock down sharply, the weight of him between her legs making her whole body flood with clean, cold arousal.

"God I miss you," he says into the curve of her shoulder, his teeth scraping the muscle there before she can fathom a response.

Smoothing her fingers over the back of his head to gentle him, Kate kisses the corner of his mouth when he lifts his head to her. "I miss you too. I'm so glad Slaughter didn't get you killed."

It makes a shock of laughter escape him and that pleased smile comes to his lips, his hands petting clumsily at her now. There's no finesse to her need; she can only squirm around the hook of lust in her guts.

"We're gonna be okay," he promises. His hands are at her back now and his palms press against the wings of her shoulder blades, thumbs at her ribcage. He holds her there to let her see the certainty on his face. "Kate, whatever this is, whatever this space is for. You get it done, and you come home."

"I'm trying," she whispers. Kate winds her arms around him again and comes in close. "Boys said you got hurt. Your nose was bleeding?"

He swipes his fingers above his lip as if he's expecting the blood to still be there and she darts in to kiss him, mindful of the press of her nose against his cheek. His face must ache; he's certainly less animate than she knows him to be, less eager to twist and contort so that she'll smile.

"Still hurts," he admits. He pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and Kate circles his wrist and tugs his hand gently away, skims her fingers over his nose. It's not broken, not swollen, but he hisses when she makes contact. "Ouch."

"Sorry baby."

His smile blooms wide and he tips his chin up, seeking her mouth. Her kiss is tentative, fingers tracing over his ears and down his neck, around and around in drugging circles. It has him practically purring against her and she smiles, has to break away from his mouth.

"I'm proud of you," she starts. His eyes go comically wide and he blinks hard, his mouth opening and then snapping shut again. "You listened to Slaughter when nobody else would. Saw the good in him. I love that about you, Castle."

She braces for it, but he doesn't yell again, doesn't tell her not to say that she loves him. Instead he slides an arm around her shoulders and hauls her in against his chest, lips at the crown of her head. "Love you too."

"And I know he's kind of your friend, so I'm sorry," she starts. He goes very still beneath her and she kisses his chest through his shirt, fingers at his thigh and stroking. "But I'm really glad I missed seeing him. That man, Rick-"

"He's not my friend," Castle blurts. His other arm comes up and he traps her in his embrace, kisses the long slope of her neck. "Not- the way he talks about women. About you. I saw a new light to him this case, but he's still not my friend."

She smiles, can't seem to help herself, but with the way he's wrapped around her she doubts he can even see it. "What did he say about me?"

"Well he kept telling me how hot you are. Like I don't know," he huffs. Castle's fingers skim the swell of her breast and she shivers, presses her thighs together. "And he told me that you have it bad for me."

"I hate it when he's right," she scowls, but there's a bloom of joy at one corner of her lips and she lets him see it.

Castle leans in and his happy mouth meets hers, their kiss clumsy with twin goofiness. He's wounded still, she knows that, but for this time once a week she gets to pretended that everything is normal, that she and her husband are just another lovestruck couple.

It's- God, so selfish. So awful of her, but she's not about to stop. Not when the craving to have him beside her, beneath her, is a living thing inside her belly that wakes her up in the middle of the night with its chewing.

"Beckett," he whispers. Kate tugs back enough to see him, gets the brush of his fingers across the edge of her jaw like a reward. "Slaughter told me to stop asking permission. And he's right. So prepare yourself, honey. I'm laying siege."

She swallows, gulps really, and he kisses the dip at the base of her throat. Kate cards her fingers through his hair, but the longer they're together the more her need rots away in her core.

It would be wrong to have him like this, on the couch in Nina's back room. She wants their reunion to be special, to be like that first night only more, the metal of his wedding band cutting cold into her palm. So she won't ruin things.

"I should go."

"Okay," he says, and there's no calamity to it anymore. He sits back on the couch, hands at her elbows when she leans in to kiss him goodbye, and when Kate closes the door on him he even smiles.

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry this is delayed, and a little shorter than usual. NaNoWriMo and assignment deadlines for university are sucking the life out of me.


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